Sociological Principle of Language Teaching and Language Learning
Sociological Principle of Language Teaching and Language Learning
Speech Act Theory
A theory of language based on J. L. Austin 's How to Do Things with Words (second edition, 1975), the major premise of which is that language is as much, if not more, a mode of action as it is a means of conveying information. As John Searle puts it, "All linguistic communication involves linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word, or sentence, or even the token of the symbol, word, or sentence, but rather the production or issuance of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of a speech act." Meaning, then, should be regarded as a species within the genus intending-tocommunicate, since language itself is highly complex, rule-governed intentional behavior. A theory of language is part of a theory of action. The basic emphasis of speech act theory is on what an utterer (U) means by his utterance (x) rather than what x means in a language (L). As H.P. Grice notes, "meaning is a kind of intending," and the hearer 's or reader 's recognition that the speaker or writer means something by x is part of the meaning of x. In contrast to the assumptions of structuralism (a theory that privileges langue, the system, over parole, the speech act), speech act theory holds that the investigation of structure always presupposes something about meanings, language use, and extralinguistic functions In How to Do Things with Words, Austin commences by enunciating a reasonably clear-cut distinction between constative and performative utterances. According to him, an utterance is constative if it describes or reports some state of affairs such that one could say its correspondence with the facts is either true or false. Performatives, on the other hand, "do not 'describe ' or 'report ' or constate anything at all, are not 'true ' or 'false. ' . . . The uttering of the sentence is, or is part of. the doing of an action,
Speech Act Theory
A theory of language based on J. L. Austin 's How to Do Things with Words (second edition, 1975), the major premise of which is that language is as much, if not more, a mode of action as it is a means of conveying information. As John Searle puts it, "All linguistic communication involves linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word, or sentence, or even the token of the symbol, word, or sentence, but rather the production or issuance of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of a speech act." Meaning, then, should be regarded as a species within the genus intending-tocommunicate, since language itself is highly complex, rule-governed intentional behavior. A theory of language is part of a theory of action. The basic emphasis of speech act theory is on what an utterer (U) means by his utterance (x) rather than what x means in a language (L). As H.P. Grice notes, "meaning is a kind of intending," and the hearer 's or reader 's recognition that the speaker or writer means something by x is part of the meaning of x. In contrast to the assumptions of structuralism (a theory that privileges langue, the system, over parole, the speech act), speech act theory holds that the investigation of structure always presupposes something about meanings, language use, and extralinguistic functions In How to Do Things with Words, Austin commences by enunciating a reasonably clear-cut distinction between constative and performative utterances. According to him, an utterance is constative if it describes or reports some state of affairs such that one could say its correspondence with the facts is either true or false. Performatives, on the other hand, "do not 'describe ' or 'report ' or constate anything at all, are not 'true ' or 'false. ' . . . The uttering of the sentence is, or is part of. the doing of an action,
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iJ3Y_wkkwa8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=sociolo gical+principles+of+language+teaching&ots=FC11b_8K7J&sig=Rmp2yakmAdrsBi3Faoy19j _T7I#v=onepage&q=so http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=barbara_johnstone&se iredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q %3Dethnography%2Bof%2Bcommunication%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D2%26cad%3Dr ja%26ved%3D0CCoQFjAB%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fworks.bepress.com%252F cgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1052%2526contex http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n1/bhela/bhela.pdf http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPC/PDF/Pdf2009/Sept/Sinha%20et%20al.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_attrition#Interference_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography_of_communication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utterance International Education Journal Vol 1, No 1, 1999(http://iej.cjb.net) NB: All references are taken on 25th August,2012.